


What if the storm ends

by Yoruhime



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU from canon, Gen, Pre-Season/Series 01, Pre-Slash, more or less
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 17:44:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2820794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yoruhime/pseuds/Yoruhime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Hale-fire.<br/>Lost in guilt and self-disgust, Derek still somehow finds the strength to make a stand. And, maybe, to earn some measure of forgiveness...</p>
            </blockquote>





	What if the storm ends

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Just a quick one-shot I wrote a while back, but that I actually like, for it forks from canon at a terrible moment in the show that always has been, for me, uncomprehensible.  
> It has no ties to the Disturbia series, except maybe for the fact that it can be seen as pre-slash of my favorite pairing.
> 
> Hope you'll like it!

Derek shudders and closes his eyes. His nails are mostly shifted, and he cannot bring them back to normal – he doesn't want to. Instead, he let them grow, grow to deadly claws, and dig them savagely into his own shoulders as he rocks back and forth, cradling himself.

His fault. It's all his fault. 

They're dead, all dead, and it's because he was so _weak_. He tightens his grip, feels the bite of his claws tearing even deeper into his flesh. He wants to skin himself raw, until he has ripped the weak, cowardly, disgusting fool out of himself. Until all traces of _her_ are gone, and he can be someone new, someone stronger.

His tears have dried out long hours ago, and now he simply sits in the dark while Laura is in the hospital visiting Peter. Derek can't. He doesn't have the courage to go, and Laura...Laura doesn't want him here, anyway. She can barely look at him. _She knows_. Not the specifics, but she knows it's his fault.

She hates him. So will Peter once he is awake. But it's alright.

He hates himself, too.

***

She comes back a few hours later – far too late for only an hospital visit, she probably walked around to avoid coming back to him, and Derek cannot blame her.

Her eyes go red the second she sees him, and the young wolf instantly shows his throat, unable to hold her stare and the disgust brimming in it it. He stays silent, accepting her contempt, aware it's all he deserves. He is incredibly lucky that she didn't just throw him aside and left him Omega.

He cannot ask anything more. And certainly not understanding.

She maintains him under her terrible Alpha's glare for a long minute more, and then she turns away, back in the night.

“I'm sorry”, Derek whispers to the empty room. But the words are meaningless: nothing will absolve him of his crime, not anymore.

Not ever.

***

“We leave tomorrow”. 

Derek rises his head, looks at Laura, who seems to be addressing the wall. Questions fly through his head. _Why now? What for? Where to? What of uncle Peter?_ The last almost pushes past his lips, but he can see Laura's tense shoulders and the way she's ready to explode. Who is he, the traitor, to discuss anything? To make things more difficult for her? He destroyed enough.

Derek bares his throat, and stays silent.

***

He doesn't know what he's doing. Doesn't know where he's going, and much less why he sneaked out. He has nothing left here, no-one to go to. And he's risking Laura's wrath if she wakes up and notices his departure. She could plain leave him.

So why?

He doesn't have the slightest idea. He's just letting his feet lead him, wolf awake inside of him like it hasn't been since the fire. _Trust the instinct_ , his mother used to say, and it's all Derek has left. That, and his guilt and disgust of himself. So he just stumbles along, because not doing it would require more energy than he feels he has left.

Maybe he'll just end up hit and ran over by a car. 

An odor of antiseptic tingles his nose, and he takes in his surroundings for the first time since he started to walk. Bile rises up his throat, and he chokes on his own panic. _No. No, not that. He can't. He's a coward, and a traitor twice-over, but not that_. He whimpers, jerks back in pure terror. “No, please no”.

The Beacon Hills hospital sign stays right where it is, visibly unmoved by Derek's begging.

He steps back once more, erratic, almost falling over in his haste; he's whirling round blindly, ready to flee without thinking, when he collides with someone, hard. Unfortunately for the other person, werewolves are steady on their feet even when half out off their mind with fear, and it's the other who falls down violently on the asphalt.

The flash of green indicates a nurse, which would have only made Derek run away faster, but the curses than resonates is most certainly spat by a woman's voice, and even now, he has too much manners to just disappear. He forces himself to approach. “Sorry, I...didn't see you. You okay?”.

Extending a hand up would probably be the right thing to do, but the idea of being touched by anyone – by a woman – just makes Derek's skin crawl. She'll have to get up on her own. In fact, he's gone the second she assures him that she's alright. But the words the woman pronounces then are certainly not the ones he expected.

“Don't worry about it”, she gets back to her feet easily enough, and Derek is about to flee, when she adds, “You seemed to...search for something?”. She doesn't believe in what's she's saying for a second it's evident. She saw him run, and she's perfectly aware that if he was searching for anything, then it was the quickest way to get out of here. But she asked anyway, and the genuine concern in her eyes makes something throb in his chest. 

He should insist it was nothing, should thank her and go away, back to the hotel before Laura wakes...He opens his mouth and says:

“I wanted to see Peter Hale”.

***

Derek sees, and lasts maybe five seconds before he _bolts_.

He runs and runs, until even his werewolf abilities cannot keep up, until he's lost into the forest and the dark , away from everything and everyone, and falls on his knees in the mud. He throws up, heaving nothing but bile, unable to stop shaking and crying. There's only one though circling in his head.

 _This is his fault, too_.

***

“What are you doing? I told you to make your bag! The bus leaves in fifteen minutes!”.

Derek takes a breath and looks up, up into Laura's red, savage eyes, and holds her stare as he gets slowly to his feet. His voice is slightly raw for lack of use, but the hint of steel underneath is palpable as he retorts, gently but firmly, “I'm not coming”.

Laura looks at him, hard and cold. “So you're abandoning the last of your Pack, now? Betraying me as well?”. Derek flinches violently, but doesn't deny the words. It is nothing but the ugly truth. The ugliness of the coward, weakling he is. And yet...

“You don't need me, Laura. You don't even want me here. You're Alpha, now”. Derek closes his eyes, squares his shoulders. “I cannot change what happened. It's my fault, and it always will be. And I'm sorry for it, but I cannot unmake it”. His eyes are burning, but he keeps his gaze locked with hers still. “But I can do something about the consequences”. 

Laura's eyes narrow. “Peter”, she sates flatly, and the disdain in it is evident. Not many people in the family liked their Father's brother. But Derek did. Does. And he owes it to the man.

“When you leave, he'll be defenseless. He needs someone to be here when he wakes, and to protect him until then”.

Laura laughs, then, an ugly, dark sound. “And what”, she spats. “Do you think he'll be happy to see you? That he'll forgive and forget? You betrayed us all. And you want...what? Redemption for your guilt? Do you think it's so easy?”. The words hit Derek like arrows, terribly well-aimed and merciless.

“I don't know”, he answers after a long while. “If he wants to kill me when he wakes, or if he tells me to leave, I'll understand”. He rises his eyes to hers once more, full of sorrow and somber with pain, but resolute all the same. “I don't want forgiveness, sister. I know I don't deserve it”.

“But I'll stay”.


End file.
